Katha Prize Stories: 6

by Meenakshi Sharma and Geeta (Ed) Dharmarajan

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 8185586527
• ISBN13: 9788185586526
• Release Date: August 2019
• Publisher: Katha
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Showcasing India

Translating into an alien language is a difficult art in itself. But the translator's worries are compounded when the `original' itself is `foreign' to certain elements which it incorporates. The multiple filtering results in a final product which gets twice or thrice removed from the reality. Despite the inherent risks involved, Katha Prize Stories Volume 8 has chosen to plunge headlong into an activity that best exemplifies the above process. The case in point is the English rendition via the Gujarati route of an oral folktale of the Kunkna Dangi Adivasis titled `The Tale of Raja Manasinha and Rani Salavan'. The vibrancy and vigour of an oral narrative, so closely rooted in the soil, are never dissipated even as the readers are transported into exotic kingdoms and heavenly courts. Sheer lyricism emanates out of every twist and turn of the tale, despite its iron framework of rules, motifs and established orders. Katha's initiative is particularly praiseworthy because it gives to the readers a piece of little tradition at a time, when the new generation is looking west-ward for inspiration. Inclusion of an oral folk story is just one among many `firsts` achieved by Katha this year. For the first time a Maithili story is included. The gain has, however been offset by the failure to include English and Oriya stories for the first time, as they could not get the nominations in time! The blame should go as much to Katha establishment for not ensuring nominations in time as to the slothful and uncaring editors for these languages. This blemish apart, the Volume 8 is a winner, leaving very little scope for caviling. Fourteen stories, culled from thirteen Indian languages, present a breathtaking range of forms and content. Despite the diversity of locales and settings-urban, rural, ethereal, cross-border-trademark India is never to be missed in each one of them. The skirmishes between castes and communities, subjugation of the downtrodden, the loneliness and angst of the aged, fiendish designs of the political manipulator, survival of humanism even in the heart of darkness-the frames which build the social mosaic of present day India build up the anthology. The multiplicity of approaches to story telling, which characterizes this volume, establishes the short story as the most promising and popular genre in almost all regions. The first story `Swadesh Yatra' by Amar Mitra is the veritable tour de force of the volume. Jogen Sahu, cashier of a municipal corporation office, is in his element as he comes home with a prize catch-a wholesome hilsa. But a disturbing piece of news about carnage in a Bihar village suddenly damps his hilsa-induced cheerfulness. Could the violence have affected the family of low-caste Lachman, the municipal sweeper, who hails from the strife-torn region? Jogen wishes away his apprehensions, as is his wont, "he has always subconsciously supposed those killed in freak accidents cannot be anyone's dear ones, nobody's son, daughter,